This was most definitely an experiment.  An experiment with a delicious result.  This came out even better than I expected.  It’s so easy and quick to throw together for dinner.  You probably have most of these ingredients on hand already.  It’s a nice twist on the standard sloppy joe.

Ingredients: 

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 pound pasta (I used corkscrew pasta because it’s fun)
• 1.5 cups mild cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 3 Tbsp brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp dried minced onion
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• 1 Tbsp sriracha hot sauce
• 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
• seasoned panko bread crumbs for topping

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Boil the pasta until al dente.
• While the pasta is boiling, brown the ground beef with minced onion and garlic.
• Drain the meat if desired (leaving in the fat will add more flavor, but this is up to you).
• To the meat, add ketchup, brown sugar, sriracha, and Dijon and mix well.
• Add about 1/2 cup of cheese to the meat and mix well.  Let this sit on low heat for a few minutes for the flavors to meld while you drain the pasta.
• Drain the pasta and return it to the pot.
• Add the meat mixture to the pot of pasta and mix well.
• Pour the meat/noodle mixture into a lightly greased 9×13 casserole dish.
• Top with remaining cheese.
• Sprinkle the entire top with seasoned panko bread crumbs.
• Bake for about 20 minutes or until the cheese has melted and the bread crumbs begin to brown slightly.
• Let this stand for about 5 minutes before serving.

You can use a canned sloppy joe mix like Manwich if you’d like, but I love this recipe as is.  It’s more flavorful than the canned stuff in my opinion!  You can also use whatever pasta you have on hand, but I love these corkscrews.  They’re fun, and they have little ridges in them that helps the sloppy joe meat and sauce cling to the noodles.  This was a huge hit with the Fella, and it will definitely be going into the dinner rotation.  I usually never have seconds, but I wanted to stick my face in this casserole dish and nom until I was incoherent.  Don’t worry, I didn’t.  But I did have another helping.  #selfcontrol